Gin

This is much more sharp and bright than I expected. Olive blossom and nectarine over (light!) patchouli.

... His scent is deep, swarthy, and darkly commanding, and compliments the Queen of Swords perfectly: oakmoss, vetiver and opoponax with black plum, wild blackberry, soft woods, sharp and glinting white musk under a soft, velvety robe of vanilla and coconut. King of Spades I love the King of Spades. (I must, to have held onto him for just about 5 years now!) There's plum and spices (or what translates to spices) and coconut... and vanilla! So. Freaking. Good.

Queen of Spades This is soft and sweet--or maybe that's due to age. I can smell muguet and pear blossom, over smoke and spices. The plum is divine. I had written this off as, "Not as good as the King" because I like foody scents and the King of Spades is more foody, where this is floral, but the longevity of this scent makes up for it. While the King is great at first, it eventually goes a little dry. The Queen remains sweet and juicy plum to the end.

Marshmallow Poof This is a scent best sniffed at a 5-6 inch distance. Up close, it has a... cherry? scent, but from a few inches, it's marshmallow! I know I shouldn't be, but I'm sort of surprised that it's *so* marshmallowy. Very cool.

Our springtime celebratory perfume is crafted with orris root, bergamot, frankincense, daffodil, orange pulp, attar of rose, jonquil, strawberry leaf, benzoin, violet leaf, copal, honey cakes, sweet cream, and the blossoms of springtime. Ostara is heavily floral in the bottle. On my skin, it's a whirl of spicky-smoky-sweet-tart. Flowers and honey and smoke. There's almost a tea-like note in here, too. And fruits? There's something for everyone in here!

Mictecacihuatl 2008 (Michtecacihuatl 2008) Warm, warm, warm. This is all sun-warmed resins and agave and cigars.

Lilium Inter Spinas This is really creamy-floral on my skin. I think maybe the Lily of the Valley + fig? I don't smell apple blossom or hibiscus at all.

Mourning Moon 2008 This is soft and well, sad. It seems gloomy. I couldn't even pick out notes, they all seemed grey and dampened. Slightly aquatic floral.

Treat #1 Watermelon and lime candy! Dries down to pure strawberry.

Irrelevant and Disturbing Surreal Crawdad Dream Yay! Tea and red currant! And blueberry! Very tangy and crisp. Somewhere along the way, the currant fades, and I get... something I can only describe as 'fuzzy'. Fuzzy and grey. There's vanilla, but everything else is indistinguishable. This is oddly comforting and soft--quite unlike what I associate with crawdads!

Tweedledee Ths smells like fruit and... fried pastries? I worked in a bakery during high school, and this reminds me of fruit-filled danish. The kumquat ends up dominating, but there's still a teensy bit of 'bakery' in there.

Hermia In the bottle, whoa, pepper! On the skin: rich spicy honey floral. The pepper fades first and I'm left with a gorgeous sweet floral.

Chaos Theory V: Recursive Self-Similarity v4: The Snake Oil Series DCVII (607) : I admit, I tried to test all three of my CTVs at once. I thought this one was broken. It smelled just like Snake Oil. Now I wonder if my nose wasn't "burned out" on the chaos notes, because alone, it smells like Snake Oil + Dorian. I was huffing Dorian and CTV Dorian on my other arm to try and decipher the CTV:D, so I think I missed it in this. ETA: Okay, now that I've tested it head-to-head with Lilith Victoria, I think I may have missed the mark again. Now, my diagnosis is this: Snake Oil and blackberry. (Eeeeep!)

Fixed Water: the essence of passion. Dark musk, wormwood, basil, dragon's blood resin, galangal, and opoponax. Scorpio 2007 seemed a bit scary to me. I don't feel familiar with any of the ingredients, save for dragon's blood, and that's not always a winning note for me. As it turns out, this is not a scary blend at all. I actually find it soothing. It's herbal in a way that makes me think of Aveda--herbs + Aveda = spa/hair treatments = relaxation. Very nice and not what I expected at all.

Opuhi This is the one Flotsam I wanted the most. And it does not disappoint. The vanilla orchid is dominant (and gorgeous), and there's a little pinch of spice. I don't know if ginger blossoms are spicy or not, but there's something a little spicy in here, and it's just so amazingly beautiful.

Gelt 2008 It's kind of funny, doing reviews for scents that have it all spelled out in the Lab descripion. This is what it says it is. Cocoa and amber. It's a lot like Bliss, I think, except it's amber instead of that hazelnuttiness that Bliss has. Goes a little bit dusty, but amber tends to give a dry, powdery feel.

The 'black glots of incense' scared me off trying this for quite some time. I shouldn't have worried, I don't get any incense at all, nor any coffee (sad!). I do get lots of sour, scorched fields, and then yummy, sticky pancake syrup. This is more like what I expected from Pancake Breakfast. I'm glad I gave this one a chance.

Snake Charmer Resurrected I got a bottle of Snake Charmer the first time around and didn't like it. Either I did a too-quick sniff test or I just didn't "get it." I'm glad I gave it another try. Sniffing the bottle, I'm still sort of 'meh' but OMG, when applied, it's goo-ood. It's like plummy Snake Oil--the Best Plummy Snake Oil Ever.

Litha 2009 My nose must be broken. Litha is pretty much all smoke on me. Smoke with a touch of resins and a hint of honey. But mostly dry smokiness.

June Gloom 2009 Flowers and rain and citrus. This is not as lemony as the original June Gloom, but more floral and deliciously gloomy.

Lilith and the Jarocho Citrussy! I get mostly citrus at first, drying down to Dorian, jasmine, and light smoke.

The East Soft and sweet. Like a gentle breeze through a meadow at twilight. The currants add a little bit of red-tanginess.

Strawberry Moon 2009 In the bottle this is ZOMG!YUM! It smells like Beth crammed 1000 strawberries in the bottle. On my skin, a grassiness comes out, and it smells like the strawberries got doused in Dirty.

White Chocolate and Sugared Violets I'm usually not a fan of violets, but this combination is really beautiful. The violet is violetty without being all up in my face (nose), and the chocolate is a true chocolatey scent.

Dark Chocolate and Pepper-Smoked Caramel Yummy spicy-smoky caramel on a dark DARK chocolate base. I had reservations about this, but I think the pepper adds quite a bit of depth and makes it a lot more wearable.